ACTRESS Georgina Hale has died aged 80 after an incredible TV and theatre career spanning 50 years.
Star performer Hale was known for a host of roles and featured on hit shows Emmerdale and Hollyoaks.
It’s believed the late thespian died on January 4 but her passing has only just come to light
Hale was also well-known for her award-winning work in the films of Ken Russell.
Her performance in Mahler (1974) was rewarded with a Bafta film award as most promising newcomer.
She also received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for her performance in the original London production of Steaming.
And she appeared in Doctor Who – The Happiness Patrol back in 1988.
Hale also starred in Emmerdale in 2006, appearing as Beryl Chugspoke for four episodes.
One of her final cameos on the small screen came about in 2011, when she played Blanche Longford on the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks for four episodes.
The star also featured in Holby City late in her career in 2016.
Devastated fans have paid tribute to the iconic actress on social media after she passed away.
One wrote: “I loved her in everything I saw her in. She was so talented.”
“RIP Brilliant in the Sweeney film and the episode of Minder with Brian Glover,” said a second.
A third commented: “Was always a fan of Georgina & the often quirky characters she played.
“Got to see her on the London stage in early 80’s in “Steaming”. Loved her in Minder playing opposite Brian Glover. Very sad to heat the news of her passing. RIP.”
“A very distinctive Actor,loved her voice,” wrote another.
In 2010, Hale was listed as one of ten great British character actors by The Guardian.
Hale made her film debut in the historical drama Eagle in a Cage (1971) as Betsy Balcombe, opposite Kenneth Haigh as Napoleon Bonaparte.
She also appeared in Russell’s two 1971 pictures – The Devils and The Boy Friend.
Hale said she grew up overweight and shy, and kept changing school as her parents moved around different pubs – something she believed damaged her education.
“I couldn’t write, spell or read,” she told the Glasgow Herald in 2002.
“There was a real shame in it, and you were the dunce of the class, always getting whacked around the head.”
Her mother died when she was 18, followed by her father four years later. At the age of 19, having never visited a theatre, she was given tickets to see West Side Story, which, she said, “blew my mind”.
She was working in London, as a junior with a Knightsbridge hairdresser, when she spotted an actors’ workshop in Chelsea teaching the Stanislavski technique of method acting.
This led her to train at Rada, graduating in 1965.
Tweaking her professional name to Hale, she began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in walk-on roles at both Stratford-upon-Avon and the Aldwych theatre, London (1965-66).
Her West End debut came in The Seagull, by Chekhov, at the Duke of York’s theatre in 1976.
She then starred as Bobbi Michele, alongside Lee Montague, in the British premiere of Neil Simon’s play Last of the Red Hot Lovers at the Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester in 1979.
Hale married actor John Forgeham in 1964, but they later divorced.
